Watermakers and 79 Cent Washers, Pt II
07 January 2018 | Blackpoint Exumas
[This is a continuation of the previous post as I was unaware of a text limitation. Am I really that long winded?]
Unfortunately (not really) we have dinner plans on SEA JULES with WHITEBIRD and DUCHESS and I am not ready to tackle the watermaker at cruisers midnight. In the morning I install the fitting and start the watermaker and guess what? We have water. Yes WATER, it is kind of like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway making FIRE. Except I make WATER. Somebody else can make EARTH and WIND. Actually somebody did make wind as we have it is spades now. The bomb cyclone (or bombogenesis, 24mb drop in 24 hours) that made all the news for the east coast weather started between the Abacos and Port Canaveral and we have two days of sustained 25-35 knots (SW going N) with gusts to 45 knots during the front passage. Plenty of stories of poor boat handling (by others) out of that, but that is another story.
After making water for 30 minutes we stop and go to town for bread, milk and eggs before the top of the storm. We also stop at the BTC store to top off my minutes and get Lana a data SIM card. It all works and back to the boat.
Then it happens, I try to make water again. This time it works for about 30 seconds and one of the feed line hoses blows off and spews brine water all over the lazerette. Repair the fitting and another fitting leak on the manifold assembly and then the pressures usually only 150 psi is back to 200psi and low voltage errors occur. I am majorly bummed. To top it off I drop three phone conference calls for work and one is with a customer. Panic ensues and I finally take Lana’s advice to swap her Verizon SIM card back in to make another attempt at comms to work. No joy. Swap back to her BTC SIM and now there is no data access for her phone. A couple of texts go through but no internet search or Facebook updates. Now I am double bummed. We ride out the storm with me attempting to work and Lana watching three movies in a row. The next morning things appear to be moderating so we move OUR DIAMOND off Staniel Cay for a shore run to BTC before heading to Blackpoint in preparations for the next round of ENE winds in the 25-35kt range for three days with included squalls and storms. Remember the story of how you answer the question of what you do all day on a boat? Well the BTC store is supposed to be open according to the hours but there is a sign posted that the person has gone to Blackpoint and will be back at 2PM. We will be in Blackpoint and I have a phone conference at 2PM so you get the picture. Just to be clear the BTC stores here are not like the Verizon, T-mobile and Apple stores back home. These are like one stall bathrooms with one person behind a bank teller style window with a drawer and very random hours. No displays of phones, no service techs, essentially it is a location to collect phone bill payments. Unfortunately all my transactions are done online so I could really use a tech. Anyway off to Blackpoint where we arrive at 1230. We motored as I was on a conference call for two hours while the rest of the fleet of 10 boats or so that we spent the bombcyclone with at Big/Little Majors Spots are all sailing to Blackpoint. Since we are before 2P we take a chance and go to the one stall BTC store on Blackpoint and of course, no one is there. Plus their hours are Wednesday 9:30-12:30 and closed all other times. Really? Back to the boat for the phone conference and then back to Scorpios for happy hour rum punches. Lana and I had three each, and I don’t drink much. These are blended rums with a little juice thrown in so they are powerful. These are the rum punches that caused trouble for Mike last year and sprained his back. Dominic and Bianca also had trouble with the rum punches and went swimming with the sharks at the dinghy dock. Actually one fell and the other had to dive for the outboard key all in the dark of course. Anyway we met old friends DUCHESS, SEA JULES, WHITEBIRD and new friends on INTREPID and BLUE MOON.
So here we sit in Blackpoint and are about the same place as before Christmas with no watermaker, poor phone service and weather coming in. It could be worse; we could be in Shady Side with 20 degree (F) highs today. No problem mon.